Clytie Siddall & Debian at Murray River

In the first blog about the tragic passing of Clytie Siddall, I looked at the question of who has a duty of care. Debian itself is a piece of software so Debian can't have a duty of care. It is the people, the employers and sponsors who have a duty of care.

I began doing voluntary work myself at the same time that I passed the amateur radio exam. I was fourteen years old. In most cases, volunteering makes society better. In the world of Debian, I resigned from some of my voluntary activites around the time my father died and the only response I got was sheer rudeness from the Debian clique around Cambridge.

Some of the first voluntary work I did was at the Murray River. It is a large river and it is political too. In other words, the river forms a border between the states of Victoria and New South Wales.

Within the first year of getting my amateur license, I had been asked to volunteer for events like the Red Cross Murray River Canoe Marathan and the Southern 80 water ski race.

The one time that we threw an IBM employee into a river, it was also the Murray, at Wentworth, about 100km east from where Clytie lived at Renmark.

By an unusual coincidence, when Clytie Siddall passed away in 2015, during a period of conflict in the Debian volunteer "community", Clytie's family chose to cremate her remains and disperse them under a tree beside the Murray River, the same place where I started doing voluntary work when I was fourteen years old. The message from debian-private is below.

Another coincidence that I mentioned earlier, the day that Adrian von Bidder died was the same day Carla and I were getting married. Debian again.

The year that rogue members of the Debian Cambridge clique started spreading rumors about a relationship with my Google Summer of Code intern was the same summer that the intern got married herself. Imagine having Debian/Google gossip about your first internship hanging over the reputation of your new family.

These are all very awkward coincidences.

Look over the conflict in the Debian environment throughout 2014, the year leading up to Siddall's death and then take another look at the quote from Richard Hartmann a few weeks before Clytie died:

(on debian-private): words can hardly express how exhausted and chaffed I feel from the constant fighting and in-fighting. I feel confused and scared that what I always saw as the foundation of Debian, it’s social fabric, is not only tearing at the ends but that some rips are making it into the center, the very core.

 

 
Subject: Re: Clytie Siddall passed....
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 06:44:36 +0100
From: Christian PERRIER <bubulle@debian.org>
To: debian-private@lists.debian.org

Hello fellow project members,

Here is what I take as a "thank you" from Pete, Clytie's husband, to
the entire Debian Projetc:


> Hello Peter,
> 
> Below is the official publication of the project, which has been
> published on our wen site, as well as sent to our usual announcements
> and release channels:
> 
> https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150204

Thank you Christian, and thanks to Debian. I value that greatly. So
do the other family members who know about Debian.

> I hope you can cope with everything that come up in such moments, that
> you and your family have deep support from friends and
> relatives....and I wish again to express to you all my full support.

You're very kind.

We held a ceremony for Clytie yesterday - family and close friends, on
a quiet part of the Murray River. Many of the testimonies you forwarded
were read to the group: yours was. Afterwards we left her ashes under a
small tree at the water's edge.

Best wishes.  Pete
-- 
Peter Siddall
Riverland Web & Email Services

This was the certificate I received after passing the amateur radio exam. They gave me the callsign VK3TQR.

 

This is the photo I published in an earlier blog, it is one of the check points with an amateur radio presence at the canoe marathon. Clytie's remains were left at a place much like this where I started doing voluntary work myself.

 

Here we can see the same date on our wedding rings and on Adrian von Bidder's grave.

 

Debian.

Please see the chronological history of how the Debian harassment and abuse culture evolved.